Tyler: Week 33

February 2-February 8, 2011 (32w-32w6d old)

Tyler Update:

• He loves practicing his new skills on our bed.  He climbs on a pillow, stands up and falls backwards.  He repeats this over and over.  I welcome it as I'm ready for him to learn how to fall properly and stop hitting his poor little noggin.

• He grabs our pant leg to pull himself up.  Thankfully I'm comfortable around his babysitter since he pulled my pants down the other day right in front of her.

• He's now standing in his crib and this is pretty much all he wants to do.  He hasn't quite learned how to sit back down so we have to go lay him down once he tires.

• He also stands in his playzone.  It's so funny to see him peeking over looking at us.

• He's crawling better this week.  One night I was brushing my teeth while Tyler was sitting in bed with Kerry.  Tyler started fussing for me so Kerry put him on the floor.  He crawled all the way to me while crying and was all grins when he got to me.  It melted my heart!

• He can now get to a sitting position on his own.

• This is a strange one, but he loves mommy and daddy's chubby bellies.  He sticks his open mouth on them, bobs up and down while making funny noises.  It makes us laugh hysterically.

• He's taken his laugh to a whole new level.  He started belly laughing.  He laughs so hard he can barely catch his breath.  We laugh so hard we cry.  I'll have to try and get this on video.

• He's starting to clap.

• His tooth is coming in more and is now visible.  He bites his spoon when we feed him and occasionally bites my nipple.  Still no fever or drooling, but he is fussy and temporarily not sleeping more than 2 hrs at a time.

• He's partially potty trained.  He'll poop/pee on his potty (if he has to go) when I give him the opportunity.  He's obviously unable to tell me he has to go, so I have to read his cues.  Pooping is easy as he grunts.  There have been times where he looks right at me, makes a non-pushing grunting noise and poops as soon as I put him on his potty.  It really seems like he's telling me he has to go.  Other times he'll grunt and I just have to get him to his potty before he goes in his diaper.  Peeing is harder as there really isn't any cues, I just had to learn when he's likely to go, like upon wakeup and after nursing.  Just like daddy, he enjoys a good book while taking care of business!

Sleep:

I've received a few emails inquiring how nap/bed time is going so I thought I would post an update.

The days of baby being able to sleep in any light/sound condition is long gone.  A couple of months ago he decided he could no longer get to sleep unless we put him in his crib where it was dark and free of our noise.  After playing he gets fussy/restless and we learned that meant tired.  We put his sleep sack on, carry him to his bedroom, turn on his white noise and play 10m of night time music from Scout the dog and then lay him in his crib.  Many times he'll go right out, other times he'll fuss for a few mins and then go out.  He's so good about taking a nap when he's truly tired that when he occasionally screams/protests, I trust that he's just not ready to nap.  So I bring him down to play a little longer and try again in a little bit.  This has worked well.

We still don't really go by a schedule, though we do pretty much follow the eat-activity-sleep pattern.  We're very laid back about it, if he's tired, we put him down, if not, we let him play.  It works for us and Tyler is gradually developing a loose schedule on his own.  He takes 45m - 1.5h naps during the day and sleeps 3-5 hrs at a time at night.  He still nurses 2-3 times at night and I'm extremely tired, but he's worth it and it's crucial for my supply.  He nurses and goes right back to sleep without a peep.  

Everything seems to be falling into place as we go.  For instance, what used to be a nap at 6 or 7pm, he turned into bedtime and surprised us by sleeping until 1 or 2.  Week by week, he's sleeping longer stretches.  Many times I wake him to nurse (so I don't explode or mess with my supply) when he doesn't wake on his own.  Nursing is much easier on an exhausted mom in the middle of the night than pumping.  So he may very well be willing to sleep through the night, but I guess I haven't given the him the chance to find out.

A few of you have asked where he sleeps now.  For the most part, his crib with a video monitor next to me.  A couple of times a week, I'll bring him to our bed after a nursing session because we miss having him next to us.  He has no problem going back to his crib the next night, so it doesn't seem to set him back any.  Recently we've preferred him in his crib (never thought I would say that) because he gets up much earlier than us and crawls all over us and it's just not safe.  I end up being a human lanyard hanging onto his ankle to make sure he doesn't go over the edge.

He has set his own schedule to about 3 naps a day, goes to bed between 6p and 8p and wakes around 6:30a or so.  Many times he plays happily in his crib until we come get him, unless he's hungry, then he stands and yells for us.

Aysha:  I have no way to contact you, so to answer your question about what kind of crib toys we have... we have the Sassy crib mirror and the Lamaze crib gallery.  He really likes the crib gallery.  He pretty much ignores the mirror, but I'm sure it would have been a total hit back when he was obsessed with mirrors.  For safety, I had to attach them to the back wall of his crib to prevent him from eventually using them to stand on and risk him going over the rail.  I also have the Leap Frog Scout the dog in there, I play the 10m of nighttime music every time I put him down and that works really well.

Blocked Ducts:

Kerry was just saying how nice it's been for me to not have any blocked ducts in a long time.  Exactly 2 hrs later I developed a painful one that took up half of my left boob... talking about jinxing me!  In a 24hr period, I nursed 7 times and pumped 9 times to get it to break through.  To this day, Lefty is only producing half of what Righty does, so appears there's been some damage that hopefully is temporary.

I wanted to share this because I found a solution to this issue and hope it helps someone else out.  The answer was at my finger tips all along.  It was in my book, chapter 18, the only chapter I hadn't read!

I've always noticed a little white blister on my nipple during a blocked duct.  I've always thought it was just nipple trauma from trying to unblock the duct.  Then I read that this is what they call a bleb in chapter 18.  It's like a blocked nipple pore.  The suggestion was to sterilize a needle or tweezers in boiling water and then gently open the blister.  I did as instructed, pumped and wala, it was cleared!  I got another blocked duct the next day and this solution resolved it right away.  Gosh, why didn't I read chapter 18!

This week in photos:

Loves standing

This is Tyler's new teething toy.
Kerry said; now that is what you call nipple confusion!

Grammy got Tyler a Little Tikes 3in1 Trike, it's a big hit!

Tyler's new Leap Frog Leaptop

I thought maybe he would leave mine alone if he had his own, that was wishful thinking!

He loves to play his Leap Frog drum.
Daddy has been teaching him how to play drums.

Granmomma feeding Tyler

He loves using his jumperoo pole to stand up.

Tyler checking out his new duck tub.

"Ah, this is the life!"